to think family charging for Christmas dinner is poor form?

[OneTicketForChristmasDinner]

My family are going for Christmas at my sister’s house and she’s just said she wants £30 for us to attend! It’s not like I show up empty handed, I always bring a bottle of wine and some crackers for the cheeseboard. It’s put a bad taste on my mouth and I’m tempted to tell her to sod the charge and we’ll spend Christmas at home, but then the children will miss out on Christmas with all their cousins and grandparents. IABU to think charging family for their Christmas dinner is wrong?

You’ve said I’m conflating things, but I don’t think that’s the case, I just see it from a different angle.

I don’t see DSis as 'charging a fee' for OP to attend. She’s asking for a small contribution towards the real cost of feeding ten people, a cost she’s been covering on her own for years, with very little offered in return. With how much food prices have risen, it’s understandable that she’d now ask for some help.

I do agree that OP could offer to host next year, but I suspect she may be surprised to find that £30 per family won’t come close to covering it.

FWIW we're in a similar position to OP in that we're spending Christmas at SIL as she's the most centrally located. 8 people will be attending and there is no way that any of us would expect SIL to foot the bill because she has more convenient coordinates than the rest of us. Some guests will be bringing food the day before but not everyone is able to, so there'll be a mix of food and monetary contributions to ensure we're able to celebrate together without anyone worrying about the finances.

I agree, except if the host wants to do it and enjoys doing it (as my mother always did).

If I had to host EVERY fucking year, I'd want the food the way I like it too!

Just chip in for the costs OP, I can't believe you've never offered her money before, any of you. You've done bloody well, never having to pay out for Christmas dinner so far, so just put your hands up, accept its due, and don't resent the very reasonable contribution towards feeding a family of 4 on Christmas.

Except that’s not what happens ….

The dsister is being mocked for wanting to do a very nice meal.
No one is accepting that maybe they could host because ‘location, location’

fwiw bringing dishes is not a solution to ‘take it in turn’. Just look at threads on here around that subject. It only works when people are pulling in the same direction. If one wants a nice meal, with all the trimmings
eg Im thinking OP wants just carrots boiled in a pan but the dsister is thinking roasted carrots with honey, they’ll clash because the dsister will still be seen as ‘in charge of Christmas dinner’ and it won’t look quite right. Neither to her but I suspect neither to all the other persons invited who are by now used to gave honey roasted carrots.

So yes I agree. Normally the ‘repayment’ is to take it in turn.
But when people refuse to take it in turn and feel it’s ok to to put down the host for her efforts, then I would have said the dsister should just refuse to host Christmas. Or she can ask then to contribute in another way - with a £30 input

@ldnelegantelephant but what is the difference between providing food or contributing money. If someone is travelling by public transport would you expect them to balance a pavlova whilst carrying presents whilst getting on and off a train/bus? If the host gets their food from one shop, would it not be easier to pay towards that shop rather than bring something else.

The sister is already contributing more by hosting the dinner every year (because she is central and that is what is expected from other family members). She is then expected to pay for it all too. I would hope that any culture would deem that unfair Pretty shit culture if they don't

Exactly.

It's about respect and love.

What comes out in this thread and the other thread is just how toxic the family dynamics are and how driven they are by fear, obligation and guilt and then people slam whatever bullshit they can think of to justify the toxic behaviour as if it's normal and it's something we should all put up with.

No it's not. It's dreadfully unhealthy. And it usually is aimed at a female in the family to take on this role without question or complaint no matter how unreasonable and demanding the rest of the family are 'because it's Christmas' or 'because that's what families do' or 'you wouldn't get complaints elsewhere' or 'oooo the Daily Mail will rip this woman to shreds for charging' (actually I think this one is increasingly unlikely as it's a mainly female audience and it's women feeling the financial pinch hardest and it's getting worse every year).

It's bullshit.

It's just emotional abuse in various different forms.

Just understand that it's bloody expensive, takes a lot of planning before the day, takes massives of stress and tiring work on the day and this should not fall on the same person in full every year.

It's really not that hard.

She's the one doing all the work and fronting all the cost, every single year. Are you sure she's the one doing the forgetting?

YABU. Your sister is spending hundreds of pounds on Xmas dinner every year and you're begrudging chipping in 30 quid. You definitely come across as a skinflint.

Maybe they could still continue to meet up at the sister’s house, but she could just invite them for a festive glass of water. The family expect to go there to eat, year after year, because they are entitled CFs.

You can spot the people on here who invite themselves to their sister’s/Mum’s/IL’s place every year without even considering the effort or expense, who have no doubt never hosted a family Christmas dinner in their lives. No doubt they also jump up as soon as you’re about to dish up and finally offer to help (once everything is done) and then afterwards disappear to the living room to sit on their arses and make merry while the hosts do all the clearing up.

The difference isn’t about logistics or convenience it’s about the underlying principle. Contributing a small dish, a bottle of wine, or even just showing up is understood as a gesture of respect and connection, not a calculation of who owes what. Paying upfront for a seat at a family dinner fundamentally changes the dynamic. It turns a gathering meant to reinforce family bonds into a financial exchange. That’s why in many cultures charging relatives for a holiday meal would be seen as socially and morally unacceptable, regardless of how convenient it might be.
Hosting does come with effort and expense, of course, and fairness can be managed in ways that don’t commodify family relationships: rotating hosts, bringing a dish, or helping with setup and cleanup are all common, non-monetary ways to share responsibility. Asking relatives to pay for their place at the table crosses a line in how family hospitality is understood globally

This is disingenuous because the apparently open-handed family hospitality in other cultures comes with reciprocity, duties, obligations, expectations indeed pressures that simply don’t exist in white British families.

If I attend auntie’s lavish Diwali every year, she absolutely expects to come and stay with me in London and the whole family will expect that too.

You rightly say that if the same person has hosted for years the solution is to rotate, divide up the food/courses etc. But that’s not happening here. OP could have offered to provide all the drink, instead she takes one dismal bottle. In a different culture no way would SIL be expected to host and fund the whole thing year on year.

What should have happened is OP and her other family members should have offered to chip in years ago. It's mind boggling to me that they never did and now have actually had to be asked. They are the ones who should be embarrassed about their behaviour.

Exactly. That’s the bottom line.

Putting the family first! That’s big of you.

I’m supposedly the “host” in our family, in that I quite like cooking (or did, before my illness) and we have more space. I’d love someone to say rock up here with £30 and it will be all laid on for you….

I have a Waitrose entertaining order in for a simple lunch for four, and without drinks it’s totalling about £250. Plus we’ll be setting the table, washing up..

So she does it every year, because of her location not because she especially wants to.

She enjoys preparing a high quality meal for you, sounds fair enough. And after all these years of funding it herself she would like a contribution to the cost. Sounds perfectly fair given the 50% prices increases on basically everything in the last few years alone.

You keep going on and on that you’ve “offered to bring a side dish”. That’s not much of a contribution and also probably just makes things a million times harder for her! She’d have to keep track of which side dish everyone said they were bringing, rely on those people to bring them, then not receive them until the day! Much easier for her to just have a contribution to buying the exact things she needs when she needs them.

As for the bottle of wine that “pairs perfectly with the turkey” …. 🙈😂😂

YABU.

I completely agree with you and very well put.

I don’t know why people can’t understand this.

You can’t monetarise hosting! Because then you are not hosting. So don’t offer or do it. You rotate or you accept contributions whatever they are in good grace.

In some families and some (most other) cultures offering a financial contribution when someone is hosting would be seen as rude.

DSis should just not host and someone else takes it on. Or she relaxes and allows contributions. She is clearly hosting under duress and is resentful.
That’s fair enough. Time to hand over to someone else before it all turns in to a lot of simmering resentment all round.

You could spend £30 on a decent burgundy and some Peter's Yard crackers. However since OP doesn't say this I assume she spends less.

Christmas day is expensive. I can't see why one family should host every year and shoulder the most.

She hosts because she’s central to everyone, so maybe she’s fed up with always paying for it all? Do you literally turn up with one bottle of wine, or enough for everybody? What does your mum (and anyone else invited) bring with them?

As someone who has hosted Christmas for many years, I would be very happy to pay £30 for someone else to do it.

If the sister was "charging" it would be £50 per head. If the meal is as fancy as the OP says £7.50 per head is bugger all!

I don't think it sounds as though she is. It sounds as though she enjoys doing the cooking but doesn't see why her tightarse family expect her to fund it every single year.

My DM and DF would go to my cousin every Christmas towards the end of their lives and along with presents and money gifts DM always bought the turkey. She also paid for a turkey for us as well. When DF died our whole family went to them for a few years. It never occurred to me not to contribute financially to the meal. I totted up how much I would spend and gave her that towards dinner plus I would take extra things like chocolates, drinks and general treat bits. There was always the usual "Oh you shouldn't!" "Yes I should!" because she had all the stress of planning and organising.

We did have what we called our "peeling party" on Christmas eve - any of my kids and I that weren't working would go to the house and peel and prepare veg while blasting Christmas music and dancing round the dining room. It was as much a part of the tradition as the boys/men measuring the height of their dinner to see who was eating the most!

After dinner her husband would oversee the washing up while my kids cleared the tables and loaded the dishwasher. She hosted by providing the space but we all worked together and provided a lot more than a tub of crackers and a bottle of wine.

'Some cultures' is being used as an excuse to hide behind for cunty fuckers who don't appreciate hosts and don't reciprocate. And then use criticism that this is the UK and it's bloody irrelevant what other cultures do as somehow being a flag shagging wanker rather than realising that a comparison with other cultures is not only a false equivalency but also is being used as just a way to defend a toxic family dynamic and pretend that the UK hasn't got a cost of living crisis.

These guests would be put out if they were dished up a budget Christmas dinner - cos it suddenly wouldn't be about family, it's be the host being stingy and it not being like previous years etc etc.

The way the OP responded to people saying that she'd been cheap in the past and that shed cough up the money 'in the family interest' said it all.

The the presumption and the total lack of understanding that Christmas is tough and it's even tougher this year - because of conditions particular to the UK.

So she pulls out all the stops getting meats and sides and puddings and cheeses and snacks and nibbles and you bring checks notes your own booze and some crackers?

YABVVU. If she’s putting on a huge spread of home cooking and she has been doing it for years by default I think it’s cheeky no one has offered to chip towards it before now. You can enjoy doing something and still think it’s fair people chip towards the cost. You all show up expecting to be fed and to make yourselves at home in her home. £30 is not a lot to go towards it all.